Books you read in 2017

Discussion in 'TMB Book Club' started by CBH, Jan 4, 2017.

  1. CBH

    CBH Well-Known Member
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    I’ve been struggling for the last month to read, it’s beginning to get annoying
     
  2. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    I'm balls deep in this little nonfiction number right now but I don't know if I'm gonna be able to finish before the 2018 thread starts
     
  3. Jorts

    Jorts "Ask about my Mortgage Services"
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    I tried & tried to finish “Alexander Hamilton”, but it’s just not gonna happen this year
     
    #453 Jorts, Dec 27, 2017
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2017
  4. BayouMafia

    BayouMafia Thought Leader in Posting
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    1. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (8/10)
    2. Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel by James Luceno (6/10)
    3. Moonglow by Michael Chabon (7/10)
    4. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (9/10)
    5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman (7/10)
    6. Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (10/10)
    7. Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson (8/10)
    8. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (8/10)
    9. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (6.5/10)
    10. Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson (9/10)
    11. To Honor You Call Us (Man of War #1) by H. Paul Honsinger (8.5/10)
    12. For Honor We Stand (Man of War #2) by H. Paul Honsinger (8/10)
    13. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (8/10)
    14. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (9/10)
    15. The Black Prism (Lightbringer #1) by Brent Weeks (8.5/10)
    16. The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer #2) by Brent Weeks (8/10)
    17. The Broken Eye (Lightbringer #3) by Brent Weeks (9.5/10)
    18. The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer #4) by Brent Weeks (9/10)

    Don't think I'll finish Oathbringer before Sunday so I guess that will be my first one of 2018
     
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  5. Gonff

    Gonff Prince of Mousethieves
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    My final year-end list:

    1. The Crippled God (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #10) - Steven Erikson (9/10)
    2. Dune - Frank Herbert (7/10)
    3. The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #1) - Carlos Ruiz Zafón (9/10)
    4. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (6/10)
    5. The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) - Stephen King (7/10)
    6. The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2) - Stephen King (8/10)
    7. The North Water - Ian McGuire (6.5/10)
    8. The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3) - Stephen King (7.5/10)
    9. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (7/10)
    10. Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower #4) - Stephen King (9.5/10)
    11. Snapshot - Brandon Sanderson (8/10)
    12. Blood and Bone (Malazan Empire #5) - Ian C. Esslemont (6/10)
    13. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments - David Foster Wallace (8/10)
    14. The Heroes (First Law World #5) - Joe Abercrombie (8/10)
    15. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman (8/10)
    16. The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton (7/10)
    17. It - Stephen King (9.5/10)
    18. The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace (6.5/10)
    19. The Wind Through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower #4.5) - Stephen King (6.5/10)
    20. Nutshell - Ian McEwan (6/10)
    21. Death Masks (The Dresden Files #5) - Jim Butcher (8/10)
    22. Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower #5) - Stephen King (7.5/10)
    23. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher (7.5/10)
    24. Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6) - Stephen King (6/10)
    25. Dead Beat (The Dresden Files #7) - Jim Butcher (7.5/10)
    26. The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara (8/10)
    27. The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower #7) - Stephen King (7/10)
    28. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8) - Jim Butcher (7.5/10)
    29. Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) - James S.A. Corey (9/10)
    30. The Butcher of Anderson Station (The Expanse #0.5) - James S.A. Corey (7.5/10)
    31. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (5.5/10)
    32. Caliban's War (The Expanse #2) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    33. Gods of Risk (The Expanse #2.5) - James S.A. Corey (6.5/10)
    34. The Churn (The Expanse #0.2) - James S.A. Corey (7.5/10)
    35. Drive (The Expanse #0.1) - James S.A. Corey (6.5/10)
    36. White Night (The Dresden Files #9) - Jim Butcher (7/10)
    37. Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse #3) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    38. American Gods - Neil Gaiman (7/10)
    39. City of Thieves - David Benioff (8.5/10)
    40. Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    41. Small Favor (The Dresden Files #10) - Jim Butcher (7.5/10)
    42. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files #11) - Jim Butcher (8/10)
    43. Changes (The Dresden Files #12) - Jim Butcher (9/10)
    44. Assail (Malazan Empire #6) - Ian C. Esslemont (7/10)
    45. Stephen Florida - Gabe Habash (6.5/10)
    46. Watchmen - Alan Moore (9/10)
    47. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files #13) - Jim Butcher (8/10)
    48. Nemesis Games (The Expanse #5) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    49. Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher (8.5/10)
    50. The Vital Abyss (The Expanse #5.5) - James S.A. Corey (6.5/10)
    51. Redshirts - John Scalzi (7/10)
    52. Skin Game (The Dresden Files #15) - Jim Butcher (9/10)
    53. Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse #6) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    54. Strange Dogs (The Expanse #6.5) - James S.A. Corey (8/10)
    55. Exhalation - Ted Chiang (7.5/10)
    56. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (The Dresden Files #12.5) - Jim Butcher (8.5/10)
    57. Working for Bigfoot (The Dresden Files #15.5) - Jim Butcher (8.5/10)
    58. The Smoke of Gold is Glory - Scott Lynch (6.5/10)
    59. Red Country (First Law World #6) - Joe Abercrombie (7.5/10)
    60. Sharp Ends (First Law World #7) - Joe Abercrombie (7/10)
    61. The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) - Brandon Sanderson **Re-read**
    62. Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1) - Steven Erikson (7.5/10)
    63. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales - Oliver Sacks (8/10)
    64. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer (9/10)
     
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  6. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    1. The Metamorphosis -- Franz Kafka (8/10)
    2. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain -- Antonio Damasio (8/10)
    3. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things -- Jenny Lawson (6/10)
    4. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail But Some Don't -- Nate Silver (9/10)
    5. Thinking, Fast and Slow -- Daniel Kahneman (10/10)
    6. Travels With Charley: In Search of America -- John Steinbeck (8/10)
    7. The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality -- Angus Deaton (5/10)
    8. The Crying of Lot 49 -- Thomas Pynchon (8.5/10)
    9. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked -- Adam Alter (8.75/10)
    10. In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed -- Carl Honoré (7/10)
    11. Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other -- Sherry Turkle (8/10)
    12. Kim: A Novel of the Great Game -- Rudyard Kipling (5/10)
    13. You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice -- Tom Vanderbilt (8.5/10)
    14. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood -- James Gleick (9/10)
    15. A Natural History of the Senses -- Diane Ackerman (7/10)
    16. The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease -- Marc Lewis (9/10)
    17. Solitude: A Return to the Self -- Anthony Storr (7/10)
    18. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- Mark Twain (10/10) *reread*
    19. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age -- Sherry Turkle (9.5/10)
    20. Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs -- Hunter S. Thompson (7/10)
    21. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Other Clinical Tales -- Oliver Sacks (8/10)
    22. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire -- Chalmers Johnson (9/10)
    23. Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work -- Dave Isay (5/10)
    24. Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic -- Sam Quinones (10/10)
    25. The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power -- Steve Fraser (5/10)
    26. Life on Purpose: How Living For What Matters Most Changes Everything -- Victor Strecher (4/10)
    27. The Meaning of Human Existence -- Edward O. Wilson (9/10)
    28. The Mission of Art -- Alex Grey (9.5/10)
    29. Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us -- Murray Carpenter (5/10)
    30. The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness -- Jeff Warren (7/10)
    31. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead -- Brene Brown (8/10)
    32. In A Different Key: The Story of Autism -- John Donvan and Caren Zucker (6/10)
    33. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City -- Matthew Desmond (9.5/10)
    34. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World -- Niall Ferguson (8/10)
    35. Live and Let Die -- Ian Fleming (7/10)
    36. The Hidden Persuaders -- Vance Packard (9/10)

    37. American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America -- Colin Woodard (9.5/10)

    Incredibly fascinating. A must if you like American history + geography. Sadly it makes me feel like a POS to be from the south...but luckily being from the south, I know we're not all POS's even though our forebears were. Here's a passage from the book's conclusion that gives an idea of what I'm talking about:

    "The goal of the Deep Southern oligarchy has been consistent for over four centuries: to control and maintain a one-party state with a colonial-style economy based on large-scale agriculture and the extraction of primary resources by a compliant, poorly educated, low-wage workforce with as few labor, workplace safety, health care, and environmental regulations as possible. On being complelled by force of arms to give up their slave workforce, Deep Southerners developed caste and sharecropper systems to meet their labor needs, as well as a system of poll taxes and literacy tests to keep former slaves and white rabble out of the political process. When these systems were challenged by African Americans and the federal government, they rallied poor whites in their nation, in Tidewater, and in Appalachia to their cause through fearmongering: The races would mix. Daughters would be defiled. Yankees would take away their guns and Bibles and convert their children to secular humanism, environmentalism, communism, and homosexuality. Their political hirelings discussed criminalizing abortion, protecting the flag from flag burners, stopping illegal immigration, and scaling back government spending when on the campaign trail; once in office, they focused on cutting taxes for the wealthy, funneling massive subsidies to the oligarchs' agribusinesses and oil companies, eliminating labor and environmental regulations, creating "guest worker" programs to secure cheap farm labor from the developing world, and poaching manufacturing jobs from higher-wage unionized industries in Yankeedom, New Netherland, or the Midlands. It's a strategy financial analyst Stephen Cummings has likened to "a high technology version of the plantation economy of the Old South," with the working and middle classes playing the role of sharecroppers."

    Yep, that about sums "us" up :ohdear:

    38. The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream -- Thomas Dyja (6/10)
    Quit somewhere over halfway through this book but still counting it because I read hundreds of pages and feel like I got the idea. Dude has a very good writing style, one of these people that makes history like a novel, but I got bored because it focuses on a narrow aspect of Chicago's history (cultural, like a biography of all the different artists and writers etc mostly) and it focuses on a narrow time period (first half of the twentieth century). I've never read a book about Chicago and wanted something a little more comprehensive. I pretty much got sucked in by the title, "the third coast" meaning Chicago's Great Lakes coast was almost as important as east coast and west coast -- I hadn't heard that concept before and thought it was interesting.
     
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  7. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    To put a bow on this topic, I'll sum up my list for anyone who's interested.

    If you could only read one book off my list:
    Make it "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnemann. I am way into psyc stuff but I think anyone would love this book. My jaw dropped almost every page.

    From the rest of my list, these are my top recs for the general reader:

    The Signal and the Noise
    Reclaiming Conversation
    Blowback
    Dreamland
    Evicted
    American Nations

    Starting a 2018 thread now: https://www.the-mainboard.com/index.php?threads/books-you-read-in-2018.172057/
     
    #457 TC, Jan 7, 2018
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2018
  8. Tangman

    Tangman Well-Known Member
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    Appreciate you sharing all of these throughout the year. I've added several to my to-read list based on your recommendations.
     
    TC likes this.
  9. TC

    TC Peter, 53, from Toxteth
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    Goal in life = achieved
     
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  10. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    2017.
    1. Towers at Midnight (WoT13) *9.0
    2. A Memory of Light (WoT14) *8.0
    3. Riders of the Dawn *6.0
    4. The Emperor's Soul *10
    5. The Eleventh Metal *6.0
    6. Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30 *6.0
    7. Gardens of the Moon *8.0 (Malazan1)
    8. White Sands short story *7.0
    9. Shadows of Silence in the Forests of Hell *6.5
    10. Sixth of the Dusk *6.0
    11. Edgedancer *7.0
    12. Wizard and Glass *9.0 (DT4)
    13. The Wolves of the Calla *8.0 (DT5)
    14. Deadhouse Gates *8.5 (Malazan2)
    15. Song of Suzannah *5.0 (DT6)
    16. The Dark Tower *6.5 (DT7)
    17. As I lay Dying *6.0
    18. The Time Traveler's Wife *7.5
    19. When Breath becomes Air *7.0
    20. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button *6.0
    21. Nine Inches *7.0
    22. Lonigan *6.0
    23. The Time Machine *8.0
    24. My Brief History *5.0
    25. Ender in Exile *6.5
    26. The Grand Design *7.0
    27. Ender's Shadow *7.5
    28. You're Never Weird on the Internet *7.0
    29. White Sands Graphic Novel Book 1 *7.0
    30. Red Rising *8.0
    31. Golden Son *7.0
    32. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry *6.5
    33. Morning Star *5.5
    34. By the Light of the Moon *5.0
    35. Memories of Ice *8.0 (Malazan3)
    36. Leviathan *7.0
    37. Redshirts *8.5
    38. Elantris *6.0
    39. Lone Stars *6.0
    40. The Way of Kings re-read *9.0
    41. Oathbringer *9.0
    42. Artemis *7.0
    43. Farside *5.5

    Most books I’ve ever read in a year, I think, at least since I’ve been keeping track. Goal in 2018 - finish Malazan series
     
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  11. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
    Staff Donor TMB OG
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    I'm so far behind on updating that its going to be a project to finish.

    Hit 86 books on Goodreads though. Slightly misleading as I rated each Sherlock Holmes short story I read as its own book, instead of just the collection.
     
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